Reducing Aggressive Responses to TCAS: Evaluation of a TCAS Training Program

The Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) is an aircraft collision avoidance system designed to prevent mid-air collisions. While responding to a TCAS advisory is generally the safe course of action, instances of overly aggressive responses have resulted in injuries to crew members and passengers as well as disruptions in air traffic operations. However, current training standards do not address the need to mitigate overly aggressive responses. This paper details the design and evaluation of a training program for TCAS which incorporated a learning objective related to mitigating aggressive responses to advisories. The impact of the training program was evaluated by comparing the results of two flight simulator experiments. These experiments examined “trained” and “untrained” pilot responses to TCAS advisories in an integrated flight deck-Air Traffic Control simulator. Overall, the training program had a significant impact on the pilots’ behavior and aggressive responses to TCAS advisories were decreased